YouTube CEO Susan WojcickiREUTERS/Mike Blake
- Google is preventing YouTube from working on Amazon products like the FireTV and the Echo Show.
- Google said it took action because Amazon doesn’t carry Google hardware or let Google hardware stream Amazon Prime Video.
Google is preventing its YouTube video service from working on Amazon’s line of hardware products, raising the stakes in a rivalry between two tech giants as their businesses increasingly overlap.
On Tuesday, Google notified Amazon Echo Show owners that they will no longer be able to watch YouTube videos on their gadgets, according to media reports. Google also told owners of Amazon’s Fire TV, a streaming set top box that connects to televisions, that they will lose access to YouTube on January 1.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Google said the company blocked YouTube due to failed negotiations with Amazon.
“We’ve been trying to reach agreement with Amazon to give consumers access to each other’s products and services,” the spokesperson said. “But Amazon doesn’t carry Google products like Chromecast and Google Home, doesn’t make Prime Video available for Google Cast users, and last month stopped selling some of Nest’s latest products.”
A spokesperson for Amazon told Business Insider that the Echo Show and Fire TV will show a standard web view of YouTube, and point customers directly to its website, rather than using an app.
“Google is setting a disappointing precedent by selectively blocking customer access to an open website,” the spokesperson said. “We hope to resolve this with Google as soon as possible.”
Google’s move is the latest in a long back and forth between the two tech companies as they battle for dominance across hardware and entertainment products.
Amazon stopped selling Google Chromecast in 2015, which the company said was because Chromecast didn’t’ work well with Prime Video. A year later though, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said that it was really about a lack of “acceptable business terms.”
It’s also not the first time Google has blocked YouTube. The same thing happened in September over Google’s concerns about how the app looked on Amazon’s device. But YouTube was reinstated at the end of November.
Now, it appears, Amazon has stopped selling Nest, Google’s smart thermostat.
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